


Inheritance

by HisAngelThursday



Series: Gangster Idiots in Love [6]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, But Also As A Moron, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Fluff, Dysfunctional Family, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Should Be Obvious That I Not Only View Michael As An Unreliable Traitor, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Unabashed Michael Gray Slander
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:21:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29848371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisAngelThursday/pseuds/HisAngelThursday
Summary: Tommy can begrudge that he might be a little bit in love with Alfie Solomons.But when Arthur Senior discovers the relationship, he's forced into an ultimatum: either cater to his father's demands, or tell his family about the relationship -- before anyone is ready.
Relationships: Arthur Shelby & Arthur Shelby Sr., Arthur Shelby & Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby & Arthur Shelby Sr., Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Series: Gangster Idiots in Love [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1756609
Comments: 56
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> CW: This is a pretty nasty chapter, because it's from Arthur Senior's perspective. As such, there are some references to child abuse, and even a very brief allusion to incest. 
> 
> I was debating whether or not I should give Arthur Senior some empathetic qualities. Thinking on the narcissistic people I've researched, however, it occurred to me that they tend to get WORSE the more you know about them, not better.
> 
> Don't worry -- we'll be back to our boys next chapter.

What bothered Arthur Senior the most about Tommy – what  _ still _ bothers him about Tommy – is that the boy refuses to be categorized. 

Arthur Junior is eager to please, easily frustrated, gullible. A little thick, being honest, but that was okay. Blockheads like him were easy to lead about, tails wagging like hounds. And if he had to pick something he admired about Arthur Junior, it would be that he’s a man, all man, full of rage and red hot blood. 

Now, John – the last time Arthur Senior saw John, he’d been but a boy. An inoffensive sort, with a lopsided grin, usually sporting a proudly won black eye. Never bothered him much if he earned himself a good smack upside the head, just continued what he was doing more quietly. Didn’t get teary and red-faced like poor Arthur Junior, or alarmingly quiet like Tommy. Really a shame he’d left too early to retain John’s loyalty. Like a dog, it could have been long-lasting. 

He couldn’t care less about the girl, Ada – too young to marry off, too wild to use. He knew plenty of widowers and jilted husbands took interest in their daughters, but she’d been too young and scrawny and scabby-kneed to catch his attention. Had never been a lick of help around the house, either – she preferred to run and shout in the streets with the boys, leaving her father to drown his sorrows in his shack. 

It seems perverse to him that Tommy got his mother’s looks – that he might actually be prettier. His wife’s bitty friends had prattled for ages about his pretty large eyes and long, delicate lashes, while Arthur Senior’s drinking chums had cracked jokes that he’d grow up to be the favorite pet of some rich nancy. Arthur Senior had thrown fists – not to defend the boy’s honor, but because his masculinity had been insulted by proxy. 

It stewed an early resentment towards the boy. Indeed, for the first few years, it seemed like Tommy might be a nancy. As if that ridiculously pretty face weren’t enough, he’d been a shy little thing, hiding against his mother to escape the attention of cooing adults. He was fond of pretty things, plucking flowers from fields and gutters, petting the soft noses of tethered horses like a little girl. 

Arthur Senior had thought he’d been late to start talking, but he could understand English and Rokka long before he chose to speak either. The first of many secrets the boy would keep from his father. 

It would have been a bloody humiliation to have a nancy for a son, but Arthur Senior would have been able to survive it if Tommy were  _ just  _ a nancy. Not that he knew too many mollies personally – wouldn’t want it to rub off on him – but he assumes that they’d be easier to control. 

But Tommy had a fucking spine. That much became apparent as he grew, and came quickly into his own. He had no absence of nerve, probably more than both his brothers put together. He never outgrew his effeminate love of beautiful things or soft spoken ways, and his pretty face was an unfortunate permanent fixture, but he could fight like a mongrel against boys twice his size. He developed a charisma that drew others to him, a small possy of scrappy lads always following him around like obedient dogs. 

More worrisome, he wasn’t afraid to look Arthur Senior in the eyes. Arthur Senior could send the other boys running from the room with a roar, but Tommy would frankly and calmly gaze back at him. When Arthur Senior hit him, it would take well over an hour to make him cry – long after he’d been whipped bloody. Sometimes, the pain would draw vomit from the boy before tears, his scrawny little body trembling with adrenaline, his eyes still defiant. 

Arthur Senior was still convinced Tommy had a few drops of nancy in him, but he was relieved to discover that he at least had an appetite for women, and more of a way with the creatures than either of his brothers. Whatever preference for men he might have, he hid it well. Arthur Senior had boasted to his drinking friends that they’d best lock up their daughters, because his boys were sleeping their way through the town.

Over time, of course, this too became a burden – he didn’t like having competition. His chances were meager enough, as the respectable women of small heath felt increasingly contemptuous towards him. It didn’t help how many of them he’d spurned, whispering promises of their sweet future together, only to promptly desert them once he’d pleasured himself with their bodies. As his sons grew too unruly and full of hormones to control, and their mother too morbid or unpredictable to service him, he finally cut ties to his Small Heath homestead. Until now.

He finds Arthur Junior just where they’d agreed upon meeting. In the empty gym, pacing about with his cap in his hands and looking pathetic. He looks so relieved when he sees his father, Arthur Senior almost feels sorry for him. Maybe he does feel sorry for him. He’s not sure he has too many drops of pity left in him, milked dry of his tenderness a long time ago. 

“I was afraid you might not come.” Arthur Junior puts his hands awkwardly at his fathers arms, as if he’s not sure it’s permissible to touch him. 

Arthur Senior responds by pulling the boy into a hug, pressing his face to the crook of his neck. “Good to see you, son,” he murmurs, in his most heartfelt and authentic tone, feeling the lad melt against him like he’s been starved of this. It will be easy to extract what he wants. 

Arthur Junior pulls away, eyes darting about, unsure where to look. He gestures to a pathetic little crate, set up with two amber bottles of beer. “Thought we could have a nice drink, to wash the words down.” 

The beer is probably lukewarm and repugnant by now, but surely not as bad as some of the horse piss Arthur Senior’s had in his time. He considers claiming to have quit drinking, to have become a teetotaling man of The Lord, but he doesn’t want to oversell it.

“Good thinking, Son. I’ll need it, for the unpleasant task at hand.” He guides Arthur Junior over to the table, the lad’s basset hound eyes tracking him with total devotion. This had better work, or he’ll be risking the loyalty of his best devotee for nothing. “Now, you know I want to be a part of your lives again.” He pauses to take a seat, and waits as Arthur Junior nearly scrambles to follow suit, sitting at their makeshift table across from him. “That I’ve changed.” 

“Right. ‘Course, Dad. People change all the time.” 

He says this, even as he disproves his own point. Arthur Junior’s face has changed, worry lines already worn into his forehead, moustache to match his father’s. He looks like a man. But what strikes Arthur Senior is the fact that he’s exactly the same. He’s just the plaintive, desperate Arthur Senior left behind. 

None of them have changed. They’ve just become more like themselves. 

Tommy, with his pretty face and cold eyes that can cut larger men like ice. John, a carefree pup whose loyalty is now to a different master. The girl, Ada, still wild and playing with the boys. Polly, his bitch of a sister, who castrates men and hangs their balls about her room for decoration. 

And himself, still starving for pleasures the world yearns to deny him. 

Arthur Junior is still fucking talking, clearly anxious to fill the silence. “Tommy doesn’t understand. I know he’s always been difficult, always set you off,” he rambles. “I can talk to him for you, I can make you understand –” 

“No. No, no need for that, son.” It’s all Arthur Senior can do to appear patient. Of course the boy’s first inkling is to prattle off to Tommy, who actually has a scheming brain between his ears and could figure out what his father’s goal is. “He’ll understand in his own time. We just have to help him get there.” He pauses, pretending as though he’s ashamed to even ask such a thing of his darling boy. “Which is why I need you to help me.”

Arthur Junior sits forward, brow pursed in painfully genuine concern. “What can I do, Dad?” 

Arthur Senior tries to mirror that sincerity. “Tell me everything you know,” he says, “about your brother Tommy.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy avoids confronting Alfie's recent love confession and contemplates what to do about his father.

Tommy had gone to sleep knowing two things: that his father is in town, and that Alfie Solomons loves him. At least, Alfie said he loves him. Not that Alfie’s particularly bound by honesty, but Tommy thinks he’d be able to tell if he were lying. 

These facts follow him into his dreams. In sleep, he becomes a child again. His father stalks their barge, rifle in hand, muttering drunken hatred under his breath. Tommy hides – he hid sometimes, when none of his siblings were in danger, and it still makes him clench with shame. He shouldn’t have let his father have so much power over him. 

The difference this time, is that there’s something big and warm hiding with him. A bear. He can hear it grumbling, feel its warm breath on the back of his neck. The barge is cold, but the bear is so comforting, exuding heat like a stove. He knows, on some instinctive level, that the bear is here to protect him – its big arms wrap around his shoulders, hugging him tightly. 

He finds himself fearing for it, too. It’s big and fierce, and stronger than his father – but his father has an unfair advantage, armed as he is. He would hate for an innocent creature to die in the process of defending him. Tommy wraps his arms about the bear’s broad torso, and wills it to stay hidden with him.

He awakes, still embracing something broad and bearish, but not actually a bear. It’s Alfie, and he’s very much awake. Tommy realizes this when he hears – and feels – the grumble of his voice:

“Well, aren’t we affectionate this morning.”

It’s a damn patronizing tone, and Tommy would roll away to spite him, but the warmth is so nice. Tommy isn’t one to deny himself things that feel nice. 

“No need to be sheepish, love.” Alfie’s hands rome down his back, under his shirt. The roughness of his fingers almost tickles. “I knew you’d be like a little cat. Used to be so skittish, but with dedication, you curl right up in my –” 

“Fuck off,” Tommy grumbles. He forces himself to sit up, and winces from the pain. Alfie was particularly cruel to him last night, and he still feels sore from the inside out. “What time is it?”

Alfie scratches his beard in Tommy’s periphery. “Well. I think you’ll find the clock’s right there, innit, and it’s not like I purposefully set it to the wrong time in order to add a new element of chaos to my life.” 

That was bizarrely specific, and also exactly the kind of thing Alfie would do. He checks his watch. “Fuck. I need to be at the office.”

He rises from the bed, still naked from the night before. Alfie had washed him, but hadn’t bothered to dress him. He can feel his skin prickle with goosebumps, as surely as he can feel Alfie’s eyes on him. 

“No, before you ask, you may not join me in the shower,” Tommy states. “You did enough of a number on me last night. I’ll have enough difficulty not limping into the boardroom today.”

“Well, you’re sure as fuck not helping matters when you talk like that, are you, treacle.” Alfie’s antiquated bed creaks as he sits up. “Come on, now. I’ll be ever so gentle with my little darling.”

Tommy ignores his patronizing words and rounds the corner to their bathroom. Is it normal that neither of them are talking about what Alfie said last night? Are declarations of love supposed to be addressed? He’s not sure. They’re abnormal people, and this situation – their relationship – is abnormal even for him. 

Anyway, he has bigger problems. Arthur is probably talking to his father, or he has already. That’s alright. It will set Arthur up for a crateload of disappointment when his father disappoints him again, but Tommy can handle that when the time comes. 

He hasn’t given Arthur any damning information to spill. He learned his lesson about that, after Grace. And he coached the family about it already, not to give Arthur access to any money or important documents until it’s absolutely certain and confirmed that their father has left town. 

His father won’t be able to get anything from Arthur. And that might make him more desperate. 

Tommy can tell he’s running from debts, or he wouldn’t be here. That, or he needs funding to fuck off to some new location, where his reputation hasn’t yet been polluted to the point of toxicity.

Maybe Tommy should just give him whatever money he needs, to be fucking rid of him. He’s rich enough now to spare it. But then his father will come sniffing around again, next time he needs a pocket full of cash. Like a game of bloody fetch.

He wishes he could just kill him, and doesn’t even feel guilty for thinking it. It would be a relief to never have to worry about him again. The only reason he doesn’t is how devastated Arthur would be. And Finn’s so young, would have so many questions about why. 

Tommy starts the shower, waits till it’s good and hot before stepping in. He hates the feeling of cold water – still remembers when they didn’t have heat. Still remembers when his father held him under. 

There’s a shadow behind the curtain, and he’s relieved yet unsurprised when he feels Alfie step into the shower behind him. 

“Thought you could use company,” his voice grumbles.

Hands are cascading over him with the water, both warm. Tommy closes his eyes.

“Gentle,” he orders, though there’s no bite behind his voice. 

“Don’t worry, my darling.” Alfie kisses his neck, beard tickling wet skin. “Just here to get you clean, good and proper.” 

And Tommy lets him. Tommy lets Alfie have every part of him, just for now, and wishes he could wash the memories down the drain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disappointed by Arthur Junior's lack of valuable information, Arthur Senior seeks out a second option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I'm taking artistic license with Michael, mostly because he personally annoys me and it's cathartic to write him as a complete moron. 
> 
> I would argue that he is also a moron in canon, because he's blatantly allowing himself to be manipulated by Gina, but that's a hot take for another day.

Arthur Junior is predictably useless. He gives away only the details about Tommy Arthur Senior doesn’t need to know.

“He lives with Ada, since he doesn’t want her being alone, as a woman and all,” he rambles. “And, you know, they’ve always been close.” 

Arthur Senior knows they’ve always been close. It was a source of great suspicion and disgust that a boy could spend so much time with his own sister, was perplexed at what they could possibly have to talk about. The boy had a feminine side – the way he moved, the way he spoke, even as he learnt over the years to walk like a man and make his little form look as big as possible. Perhaps his success with women was rooted in his ability to think like one. 

“...But, she says he’s not home some nights,” Arthur Junior continues. “Probably out with women, I’d imagine. He gets men to watch the house, and they’re always watching him, always following. He gets men that look like normal people, so’s –”

“Yes, yes, I gathered that. So, most of this business, it’s illegal, is it?” Arthur Senior clarifies, “Obviously, you can tell me. Lord knows I’ve never been a friend to the coppers.”

Arthur Junior chuckles, a little harder than necessary. “Right, right.” It’s so clear how desperately he’s vying for his father’s approval. “Yeah, it started out that way, Dad, but not so much any more. Tommy wants it to be a legitimate business, you see, and now it mostly is – legitimate, that is. He’s, you know, getting into politics.” 

“That a fact?” Arthur Senior tries to make it sound like he didn’t already know that. That he hadn’t seen his least favored son appear with increasing frequency in increasingly less obscure newspapers. “Well. I suppose the people want a pretty face to look at more than anything, don’t they?”

Arthur Junior chuckles sheepishly, as though he doesn’t want to have a laugh at his brother’s expense. Bless his heart. “It’s more about the people he knows. He’s pulling away from the illegal shit, but he still has friends he’s buying out – people from London. The Paddies. Everywhere, really.” 

It’s clear that Arthur Junior doesn’t really know what he’s talking about with regards to his brother’s allies. Arthur Senior has to wait til the evening for that, when he's scheduled to meet with the cousin.

* * *

The boy, Michael, hadn’t been at the family meeting, which confirmed what Arthur Senior had already suspected about his position in the family. 

Having followed the family’s social climb from afar, he was aware of Michael’s separation and subsequent reunion. He’d come up with an excuse to run into him a few weeks back, to have a few drinks and some friendly conversation while Michael was out with some other lads at a local pub. 

Arthur Senior knew the type. A few drinks in him, and the boy started talking like he ruled the roost, like the only thing preventing him from bringing the family business to new heights was prejudice against new ideas. 

But he was also a boy in need of a father. Thomas already had more patriarchal duties than he knew how to handle, and Arthur Junior was still cloying for acceptance he’d never receive. Arthur Senior used that to his advantage. He listened. He played up their similarities, implying that he, too, was an outcast, unfairly ousted by his kin. He played into his ego, too, telling the boy that he deserved more responsibility, that he was going places, that, “if it were up to me, you’d be in the very office next to mine.”

“I’ll be back in a few weeks, to try to put things right with my beloved sons,” he had said, to conclude their first meeting. “You’ll keep this between us in the meantime, won’t you?”

And Michael had. This told Arthur Senior all he needed to know. 

The lad is waiting for him at the designated location – a pub on the outskirts of town, apparently not often frequented by Tommy’s boys. He sits at the counter, looking mildly disgusted at the state of the place – uncomfortable with it. Not like the true Shelbys, who had practically bathed in gutter water when they were poor enough. For all his finery, even pretty little Tommy could feel right at home in a place like this. 

Michael eyes him with relief as Arthur Senior approaches. “Was beginning to think you might not make it.”

“Public transit. You know how it is.” Arthur Senior settles himself on the stool next to Michael. 

Men are raucously drunk all around them, despite the fact that it’s barely evening, the air sour with the stench of beer and sweat. It feels like home. 

“As much as I wish I could take you someplace more hospitable, I’m afraid your cousin is a very important man these days,” he offers, with a heartfelt look. “Can’t risk getting spotted, or I might be run out of town.” 

Michael nods. He has an admirable enough poker face, a difficult boy to read, but it’s clear he takes himself a little too seriously. “Didn’t go well yesterday, I take it,” he remarks.

“Well. One must start somewhere, mustn’t one.” Arthur Senior pats his chest to convey his sincerity. “Let’s get some drinks down, shall we? This place will look a lot more hospitable once we’re less sober.” 

Except Arthur Senior doesn’t drink. Doesn’t drink much, at any rate – he has developed an impressive tolerance. But he makes sure the drinks keep coming, greasing the air with words as Michael steadily inebriates himself. 

He tells him about Tommy’s refusal to even hear his side of the story. 

He tells him, yes, he made mistakes, but it was shame that kept him away from the family for so long, and Tommy won’t even give him a second chance. 

He tells him, Tommy’s headstrong nature got him into a good bit of trouble as a boy.

Michael chuckles at that. He hasn’t had enough to start slurring, but the booze has definitely loosened his tongue. “In trouble with the coppers already, was he?”

“Oh, from the day he was born, my boy! Why, when he was but ten years old, he fought three coppers for a bit of candy he nabbed from the market.” It hadn’t been candy. It had been a loaf of bread, and Tommy had been left in the adult part of the jail until Polly and his mother were able to scrounge enough to get him out. “Oh, but I laid into him when I found out about that! My own boy, putting himself at risk that way, I couldn’t let that stand. The poor boy wasn’t able to sit down for a week.” 

Michael laughs at that, understandably. All he’s seen of Tommy is who he’s become, mighty and regal as a king. 

“You know –” Michael pauses to swallow the contents of his glass – “I’m not surprised. I’m really not. He still takes risks that I would never, personally, consider for myself. If I were in charge, that is.” The boy’s voice is slurring a bit now – he really does have an impressive tolerance, for his age. 

“Oh?” Arthur Senior feigns concern to mask his interest. “What kind of risks?”

“Well.” Michael stairs at his drink, as if weighing whether he should share this. “You have to understand, Uncle, I could lose my job if he found out I told you.” 

“Come now, boy, I’m your own blood! We Travelers speak no evil of our kin.”

“I’d need payment.” 

Arthur Senior finds that he’s actually impressed. The boy is an idiot, make no mistake – he allowed himself to get drunk, he lacks finesse, and he’s deluded enough to believe that Arthur Senior will actually keep his word. But, that level of greed – Arthur Senior sees a bit of himself in this boy. 

He puts his hand to his chest, too superstitious to spit on this. “You have my word as a gentleman.” 

Michael, ignorant lad, seems satisfied with this. He leans back in his chair, as if seated in the spiffy little office Tommy set up for him. “Well. I’ve overheard this from my mother, and my aunt – they sometimes forget I’m around, I think.” 

Arthur Senior makes his face look sympathetic as he nods. _ For fuck’s sake, boy, get on with it. _

“He whores himself out, you know, for deals.” 

Well, of course Arthur Senior knows this. It’s practically a family tradition, crawling into rich women’s beds – 

“Mostly, it’s women.”

This, Arthur Senior had not been anticipating. He can’t even react properly – doesn’t even know how he feels about it – it’s so unexpected. 

“Mostly?” he repeats. “You mean, sometimes it’s men?”

Michael nods. “Apparently, he doesn’t discriminate. No one knows, though, besides Pol and Ada.” He shrugs. “Times have changed. People my age don’t really care anymore, and it might actually help him as a politician. Appear more proressive and all that. But on the illegitimate side of things, it could still be a problem. The criminal world, you know, it doesn’t evolve as quickly. His allies, some of them have their traditions.” 

Arthur Senior is only half listening. He finds, of all things, that he is outraged. Outraged, that Tommy hid this from him so well. That all this time, he could have held this over the boy’s head, perhaps even use it to reel him in somewhat. 

“So that’s why it’s such a problem that he’s sleeping with some of them. If Solomons, the Jew, ever decides to use this against him –”

This makes Arthur Senior snap out of it. This is too big, too valuable, to let it slip past him. “Michael, my boy,” he says, leaning closer, “tell me about the Jew.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this one: mentions of underage prostitution.

Arthur Senior thought he had cured Tommy of this when he was a boy.

It had nearly caused the family a great deal of humiliation. He could still remember the day he returned to town after a prolonged period of absence, having been busy with London, its underground gambling life, its women. Back to Small Heath and its winter slush and smog and gray skies. Bloody depressing. 

His first day back in the pub, some big fellow with a loud mouth came sauntering up to him. Apparently, according to this man, his boy had been going to great lengths while he was away to ensure that the family was fed. Great lengths indeed. 

The man had said this with a lude look that told Arthur Senior all he needed to know. He made damn well sure that the man wouldn’t tell anyone else – practically spread him on the tracks, he did. What worried him was how many he’d told before that. And how many others were complicit in Tommy’s transgression. 

Tommy had been fourteen. A tiny thing, who could still easily pass for a girl if his hair were long enough, even for all his scrappiness in fights and command over the other boys. It wasn’t a surprise that the boy had some molly in him – Arthur Senior had suspected it from the start, after all. And if that’s all it had been, a few shy, Bambi kisses with boys his own age, it would have been tolerable – something to use to his advantage, to control him with. 

But grown men, men Arthur Senior went drinking with, for  _ money _ – that could ruin Arthur Senior’s reputation. After all, what kind of man is so absent from his family’s life that his boy has to sell himself like a common whore?

Arthur Senior had stoked the fire of his rage with whisky and gone home to put things right. He hadn’t seen Tommy in months, and he greeted him by demanding to know if the man’s accusations were true.

Tommy’s ability to hide his true emotions were admirable. But in that moment, Arthur Senior saw a flash of fear and shame behind his eyes. It was all the confirmation he needed. 

He nearly beat the boy to death. And he told him, semi-conscious and bleeding on the floor, that if he ever caught him doing that shit again, he’d find himself back in the adult part of the local jail.

“I know how you liked _ that, _ ” Arthur Senior had spat. “Maybe that’s where you got your skillset from, eh, boy?”

And Tommy had started to cry. Actually cry at that. A guttural sound, like a creature who’d been pushed too far for too long, mourning some old, untended wound. Alarming as the noise was, it filled Arthur with immense satisfaction.

It didn’t last long. After Tommy recovered from the initial beating, he returned to walking around as proud as he always was, even with plum-purple welts on his pretty face. He refused to even limp.

The neighbors, nosy bastards, gave Arthur Senior dirty looks, very much aware of who was culpable, but no one called the police in Small Heath. 

Tommy had never shown interest in another man, not since Arthur Senior had pounded it out of him so thoroughly. Or so he’d thought. It turns out, Tommy had just gotten better at hiding it. 

Worse, his relationship with the Jew, from what he’s learnt about it, confirms Arthur Senior’s greatest suspicion: that Tommy doesn’t just do it for the money. He likes it. And here, he tried to pretend like he was but some poor orphan child, whoring himself out in lieu of an attentive father.

Arthur Senior is enraged. Tommy’s success disgusts him – he shouldn’t be so successful, so respected, when he’s no better than a common street slut. All his men, who listen to his command so religiously. 

Arthur Senior can only get respect when he goes somewhere completely new, where he can still intimidate with his bulk and wired strength. Slowly, wherever he goes, the respect and the potential allies slip away. And then he has to move on to the next place, and do it all over again. 

Well, that’s going to stop now – he’ll see what the family thinks of their replacement patriarch when they find out about his filthy little secret. He doubts Arthur Junior and John will be as understanding as the women folk. And he’ll get what he wants.

He’s been starving for far too long. 


End file.
